For Chicago homeowners residing in one of the city’s eight townships as defined by Cook County — which includes Hyde Park, Jefferson, Lake, Lakeview, North Chicago, Rogers Park, South Chicago, and West Chicago — your property is in the triennial reassessment zone this year.

If you want to be sure that you’re not paying too much in property taxes, this is a good time to appeal your assessment. Here’s what you need to know.

Properties Are Assessed by Neighborhood & Housing Type

Reassessment is not a property-by-property process. Though the process is not completely transparent, the Cook County Assessor’s Office uses a computer-assisted method to assess home values based on neighborhood, housing type and aggregate sales price data. The more than 1.3 million residential properties in Cook County are divided into three reassessment districts, with each district undergoing reassessment every three years.

When market adjustments are applied, they are applied in mass at the neighborhood and predominant housing type level. Making certain that your assessment is fair requires an individual review, which only happens if you appeal.

Reassessment Does Not Always Reflect True Market Value

At Kensington, we find thousands of recent arms-length purchases each year that are not reflected in the assessor’s valuations. Sometimes they’re still not corrected at the triennial reassessment.

If your property is subject to reassessment this year, it’s important to file an appeal. If you don’t, an assessment that is too high can have you paying more than your fair share of property taxes over the next three years.

If you’ve already appealed with the Cook County Assessor’s Office, you may be able to further reduce your assessment by appealing with the Cook County Board of Review later in the year.

Appeal Now & Reap Years of Savings

Appealing your assessment is the only way to ensure that you do not end up paying more than your fair share of property taxes. If you don’t appeal, you will end up paying for the savings of those who do. The Cook County Assessor’s Office has acknowledged that the appeals process makes the system more fair.

We use a proprietary algorithm to scour the data for the detailed comparable statistics you need for a successful appeal. If we don’t think you have a strong case, we won’t recommend an appeal. Our clients pay nothing unless we win. When we do recommend an appeal, our clients win 90% of them time and the savings are often over $1,000.